Home Bio-Digesters: How to Convert Waste Into Cooking Fuel

Around the world, restaurants, farms, grocery stores, markets, and households waste an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food. That amounts to almost one-third of all the food produced each year, says the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This wastefulness is a serious ethical issue, given that 795 million people, nearly 13 percent of the world's population, are malnourished. Project Drawdown estimates that food waste accounts for almost 8 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions come mostly through methane emissions produced when organic waste goes to municipal landfills.  

There are straightforward ways to cut back on your household's contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. You can build a compost pile in your backyard, invest in a simple vermicomposting bin. Or, where available, you can separate your organic and inorganic waste to support municipal composting and recycling operations. But what if we told you that the methane gas emitted from natural decomposition processes could also be "harvested" for use in your kitchen? Home bio-digesters are a fantastic example of an appropriate technology that can kill two birds with one stone. Not only do they reduce emissions associated with food waste, but they can also diminish our reliance on natural gas.

Below, Rise offers a review of a bio-digester on the market today. We explain how bio-digesters work and offer a few ideas for how homeowners can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by incorporating a household bio-digester system.